Boeing's "Dash 80" Tail No. Finally Cancelled

Boeing's historic 367-80 aircraft, currently on display at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport, has finally had its tail number cancelled by the FAA earlier this month.

Tail number N70700, registered to the National Air and Space Museum, was cancelled from the U.S. register on May 3, 2013, nearly 10 years after it was ferried to Dulles on its final flight and 58 years after it first flight.

The cancellation is an apparent part of the FAA's desire to clean up its aircraft register, deregistering unairworthy or non-existent aircraft. Several examples of aircraft that have recently been removed from the N register:

- N8038U, a DC-8-21 that was withdrawn from use in 1978, was finally cancelled in February 2013
- N626TX, a DC-9-14 that crashed on takeoff at Denver in 1987, was finally cancelled in March 2013
- N880WA, a CV-880-22-2 that was scrapped in 1985, was finally cancelled in May 2013

The FAA has been cleaning up its registry for several years now and it's expected to continue for the foreseeable future.